2022-001 The District did not have adequate internal controls for ensuring compliance with allowable activities and costs, and restricted purpose requirements.
Assistance Listing Number and Title: 32.009, COVID-19 – Emergency Connectivity Fund Program
Federal Grantor Name: Federal Communications Commission
Federal Award/Contract Number: ECF222118588
Pass-through Entity Name: N/A
Pass-through Award/Contract
Number: N/A
Known Questioned Cost Amount: $420,000
Background
The Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) Program provides funding to meet the needs of students and school staff who would otherwise lack access to connected devices and broadband connections sufficient to engage in remote learning. This is referred to as “unmet need.” In fiscal year 2022, the District spent $420,000 in ECF Program funds to purchase laptops for students and staff.
Federal regulations require recipients to establish and maintain internal controls that ensure compliance with program requirements. These controls include understanding grant requirements and monitoring the effectiveness of established controls.
Allowable activities and costs
ECF Program recipients may only seek reimbursement for eligible devices and services provided to students and staff with unmet need. Recipients are prohibited from seeking reimbursement for eligible equipment and services used solely at the school or held for future use (i.e., warehousing).
However, when requesting reimbursement, the District could only request program funds for eligible equipment and services provided to students and school staff with documented actual unmet need at the time of reimbursement.
Restricted purpose – unmet need
When submitting applications to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), schools only had to provide an estimate of their students’ and staff’s unmet need. However, when requesting reimbursement, the District could only request program funds for eligible equipment and services provided to students and school staff with actual unmet need.
Description of Condition
Allowable activities and costs/restricted purpose – unmet need
The District estimated unmet need for eligible equipment when it applied for ECF Program funds. However, our audit found the District’s internal controls were ineffective for ensuring it documented the determination of actual unmet need at the time of reimbursement. Specifically, the District purchased laptops based on its estimate of unmet need at the time of application and on a survey of students at the beginning of the school year who indicated a need for laptops, and it requested reimbursement for these purchases totaling $420,000. However, the District did not maintain documentation showing it provided each laptop paid with program funds to a student or employee with documented unmet need at the time of reimbursement.
We consider these deficiencies in internal controls to be a material weakness that led to material noncompliance.
This issue was not reported as a finding in the prior audit.
Cause of Condition
Employees in the District’s finance and information technology departments knew the program was federally funded and were aware of all its regulations. However, they did not know about the requirement to document unmet need at the time of reimbursement and thought the estimate of unmet need provided during the application process and the survey of students at the beginning of the school year in need of laptops, was sufficient to comply with this requirement. The District needed to demonstrate it used the survey results to distribute program funded
laptops to only those students who responded that they needed a device.
Effect of Condition and Questioned Cost
Allowable activities and costs/restricted purpose – unmet need
Because the District did not have documentation supporting whether it provided eligible equipment only to students and school staff with actual unmet need at the time of reimbursement, it cannot demonstrate compliance with the program’s requirements. Given the nature of the program and circumstances, it is likely that some of the equipment the District charged to the award addressed unmet needs. Although the District purchased laptops based on its estimate of unmet need at the time of application and on the survey of students at the beginning of the school year in need of laptops, the lack of a documented assessment of students’ actual unmet need at the time of reimbursement means that all costs are unsupported. Since we do not have a reasonable basis for estimating how much the District’s expenditures
are allowable, we are questioning all unsupported costs.
Federal regulations require the State Auditor’s Office to report known questioned costs that are greater than $25,000 for each type of compliance requirement. We question costs when we find the District does not have adequate documentation to support expenditures.
Recommendation
We recommend the District work with the granting agency to determine audit resolution.
We further recommend the District establish and follow internal controls to ensure the requirements for ECF awards. Specifically, the District should request reimbursement only for eligible equipment and services provided to students and staff with documented unmet need at the time of reimbursement and maintain documentation demonstrating compliance.
District’s Response
The Issaquah School District does not concur with the audit finding; specifically, the assertions the District had a material weakness in internal controls, was unaware of the requirement to request reimbursement only for actual unmet need,
and the amount of $420,000 in questioned costs.
Funds granted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) through the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) enabled the Issaquah School District to provide laptop computers to students and staff who needed sufficiently connected devices during the unprecedented COVID-19 emergency. According to FCC Report and Order 21-58, “We think that schools are in the best position to determine whether their students and staff have devices and broadband services sufficient to meet their remote learning needs, and we recognize that they are making such decisions in the midst of a pandemic. We, therefore, will not impose any specific metrics or process requirements on those determinations, but we expect schools to take reasonable measures to determine need, avoid duplicating support provided by other programs such as the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program, and document need to the extent they do not already do so.”
As noted by the auditors in the finding report, the District had knowledge of the requirement to estimate unmet need during the application process, adequately interpreted the requirement, and was compliant in how it determined unmet need. The basis of the audit finding is described as the District having “internal controls that were ineffective for ensuring it documented the determination of actual unmet need and only requested reimbursement for equipment provided to students and staff with unmet need.” The District disagrees with this assertion and that District staff were unaware of the program regulations. District staff were fully aware of the reimbursement requirements as stated in Title 47 CFR Part 54, Universal Service, Subpart Q, Emergency Connectivity Fund. Specifically, section 54.1711 outlines requirements for reimbursement and mentions that in submitting for reimbursement, the District certify costs are for ECF eligible equipment. Included in the FCC ECF Frequently Asked Questions document, question 6.9 further expands on the expectation for reimbursement. Question 6.9 states that reimbursement should be submitted for “eligible equipment provided to students or staff who would otherwise lack broadband services and/or devices sufficient to
engage in remote learning” and “schools may be asked to provide documentation to support actual costs of assigned equipment and/or services after funds have been committed.”
The District only requested reimbursement for eligible equipment that was provided to students and staff who had an unmet need. Processes and internal control structures were adequately designed for determining unmet need and
distributing equipment accordingly. The Technology and Finance Departments maintained detailed documentation of actual costs of assignment of equipment, which was provided to the FCC with the request for reimbursement. The District maintained “documentation to support actual cost” for audit as required. During the audit, staff provided auditors various examples of additional support the District used to substantiate unmet need when distributing laptops. This supporting documentation was not considered by the auditors in determining the amount of
questioned costs.
In the midst of a global pandemic and time of great uncertainty, the FCC granted emergency funding that assisted school districts in providing critical equipment and services to students and staff with unmet need. Issaquah School District staff designed processes and internal control structures consistent with the federal grant requirements to ensure this resource was available to the intended recipients. Based on the information provided above, the District does not agree with the audit finding, statement of condition, or the amount of questioned costs.
Auditor’s Remarks
The State Auditor’s Office is sympathetic to the significant challenges the District faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and deeply respects its commitment to student learning despite these challenges. SAO knows that in many cases,
governments across Washington received significant pandemic-era federal funds without also receiving clear guidance on how to use them. Then, and now, SAO continues to advocate for clear, timely guidance from federal agencies to make sure Washington governments are not put in a difficult position at audit time.
However, when auditing federal programs of any kind, governments must provide documentation to substantiate that they met the award requirements. As is our practice and audit standards require, we will review the status of this finding during our next audit. We value our partnership with the District in striving for transparency in public service.
Applicable Laws and Regulations
Title 2 U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 200, Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards (Uniform Guidance), section 516, Audit findings, establishes reporting requirements for audit findings.
Title 2 CFR Part 200, Uniform Guidance, section 303 Internal controls, describes the requirements for auditees to maintain internal controls over federal programs and comply with federal program requirements.
The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants defines significant deficiencies and material weaknesses in its Codification of Statements on Auditing Standards, section 935, Compliance Audits, paragraph 11.
Title 47 CFR Part 54, Universal Service, Subpart Q, Emergency Connectivity Fund, describes the ECF Program requirements.